Page 33 of Dairy and Deadly

The slow burn of anger chased the coldness from her stomach. Thanks to him, she was already tired and cranky, more than usual. How dare he continue to pester her! In the middle of the night, no less!

Against her better judgment, she accepted his call and held the phone to her ear. “This had better be an emergency,” she announced icily.

There was a moment of silence, followed by an explosion of breath. “You bet it is! I’m trying not to lose the woman I love!”

Her temples throbbed as she sat up again in sheer indignation. “Our relationship went nowhere!” Pretending anything else was the height of dishonesty on his part.

“Maybe because your attentions were divided between Dallas and here?” His voice grew bitter. “Have you considered that?”

Here?Did that mean he was still in town? She was so ready to see the last of him! “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Her brain was too tired to dissect his latest accusation.

“You know exactly who I’m talking about,” he stormed. “Johnny On the Spot.”

It took her a moment to wrap her brain around what he was implying. “If you’re referring to my new boss, we only met a few days ago.” The moment the words left her mouth, she wanted to kick herself. Martin was clearly digging for information about Johnny Cuba, and she’d inadvertently given it to him.

“And I’m supposed to believe it’s strictly a platonic relationship?” he groused. “You moved on awfully quickly!”

It wasn’t true. “Our relationship has been in trouble for a long time.” The only reason she hadn’t broken up with him sooner was because she’d been too busy fighting crime on the streets of Dallas. He’d taken advantage of her career as a police officer to string her along indefinitely. Well, that game was over! They didn’t want the same things in life. At least one of them had been honest enough to admit it.

She could practically feel him seething over the harsh truth she’d thrown at him. However, his voice was oddly gentle when he started speaking again. “Listen, I want to give your engagement ring back. You and I are the only thing that makes sense in this crazy world. That’s the real reason I drove into town tonight. I didn’t come to argue. I just wanted to see you again.”

His words made her heart ache. Oh, how she regretted taking his call! Maybe it was the lawyer in him, but he always seemed to know what to say to twist her insides into knots. What was it going to take to convince him that it was over between them, truly over?

“I can’t do this anymore.” She hated how weak her voice sounded. She was done with getting her hopes up in his direction, only to have them come crashing back to the ground — again and again and again. “I’m in a new town, pursuing a new opportunity. I don’t want to go back to what we were before.”Never knowing where I stand with you.

“Running is never the answer,” he sighed. “You, of all people, should know that.”

“I didn’t run, Martin.” Not only was he twisting her insides, he was twisting the truth. “I stayed. I healed. I fought to keep my job.” Right up until it wasn’t worth it anymore. “But sometimes God shuts a door and opens another one.”

He snorted. “It sounds like you swallowed a church tract.”

“Goodbye, Martin.” Her thumb hovered over the disconnect button.

“What about your parents?” he protested. “And your sister? She’s new in town, Perkins. She could really use an older sister to give her some guidance.”

Perkins?Despite her outraged gasp, he plunged onward. “Do you really think your mother would’ve wanted you to stop living? She was an animal geneticist, for pity’s sake! She lived on the cutting edge of science. Her life was a celebration of life itself.”

Blah, blah, blah!Ashley tuned out his word salad. Her mind was still grappling with his insinuation that it was time to move on from her grief. As if grieving had a time limit! Her blood boiled over his casual declaration that she needed to serve as some sort of welcoming committee to her stepsister. Seriously? Her stepmother and stepsister had barged into her and her father’s lives with no regard for their collective suffering, all but commanding them to dry their tears. No compassion. No understanding. From day one, their focus had been on themselves alone.

Her stepmother had taken things a step further by calling Ashley’s ongoing grief childish. Like she was clinging to her grief out of pettiness and immaturity.

“I know you don’t want to walk away from all the dreams we’ve dreamed together.” Martin’s wheedling voice festered in her ears like an oozing blister. “No relationship is perfect. We’ll smooth out our wrinkles and move forward from this into a stronger version of us.” He adopted a conspiratorial tone. “A lawyer can be a very useful guy to have in one’s court.”

Her heart skipped a beat at the underlying warning in his words. She didn’t need a lawyer. But even if she did, he would be the last one she’d consult at this point. “I’m gonna fight my own battles from now on.” That was it. She had nothing else to say to him. “I’m hanging up now.” She disconnected their call and turned off the ringer.

Lying back on her side on the bed, she watched the face of her cell phone flash with several more incoming calls from him. One, two, three, four… She lost count of them as they rolled to voicemail. She shivered in the darkness from too many emotions to name. Not even the blanket could warm her.

After a few more minutes of shivering, she finally gave up trying to sleep. Throwing her feet over the side of her bed, she felt around the floor with her sock feet for her sneakers. Then she trudged to the kitchen to collect her coat off the back of one of the kitchen chairs.

She hugged the ends around her instead of taking the time to zip it and let herself out the front door. Half-expecting Martin to be waiting for her there, she darted a nervous look around. Then she took off running for the big barn.

She wept in silence as she ran, but even crying felt better than staring up at the walls in her cabin. She reached the barn door and let herself in, knowing her movements were probably being captured on live video. Johnny had mentioned something about having security cameras embedded across his farm. No surprise there since he was a private investigator.

Still sniffling, she hurried across the empty milking parlor to the room where the calves were housed at night. Tiptoeing inside, she found all four of them asleep. She studied them through blurry eyes and zeroed in on Brie. The little heifer was snoozing in her favorite corner. Ashley made a beeline for her and settled down on the straw beside her.

Brie stirred and raised her head to give Ashley a blank look. Then she started wiggling.

It dawned on Ashley that she was trying to stand. There was just enough moonlight pouring through the tiny square window at the top of the room to make out her thin legs scissoring against the hay-strewn floor.

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